FanDuel snaps up GiGse LaunchPad winner

Less than four months after being crowned as the winner of the GiGse Totally Gaming Start-Up LaunchPad competition in San Francisco, sports analytics company numberFire has been acquired by fantasy sports giant FanDuel.

The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. A Series E funding round last month raised $275m (€246m) for FanDuel, valuing the company at more than $1bn.

Nik Bonaddio, the CEO and founder of numberFire, and his 10-person team, will join Fanduel following the transaction.

The numberFire website will remain in use, with its proprietary information eventually used on FanDuel’s platform.

ESPN, USA Today and Sports Illustrated are among the media companies that use numberFire, which has more than 225,000 members and provides data subscriptions and content.

NumberFire, a sports analytics platform that brings the ‘Moneyball’ world to the everyday fan, swept to victory at the LaunchPad in California in April with all of the judges backing the New York-based company.

“NumberFire’s goal has always been to make sports fans smarter, and FanDuel’s mission is to make sports more exciting. The businesses are a cultural fit,” Bonaddio said. “NumberFire’s consistent growth is directly correlated to the rise of the daily fantasy industry and uniting our teams will propel the sports analytics and fantasy industry forward.”

FanDuel recently completed a deal to take over Scottish mobile application developer Kotikan.